


DaVinci's Wings

by ella_minnow



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: M/M, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-27
Updated: 2012-05-27
Packaged: 2017-11-06 03:13:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/414081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ella_minnow/pseuds/ella_minnow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His family had always warned Billy not to fly too high.</p>
            </blockquote>





	DaVinci's Wings

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on [ lmno @ livejournal](http://ella-minnow.livejournal.com/9025.html#cutid1) on 29/05/2003. Because bandwagons are fun, especially those that come with wings. Thank you to mcee for the beta.

His family had always warned Billy not to fly too high.

"Your wings are made of paper and string," his grandmother had warned as she wrapped her great, grey wings around him in a comforting embrace. "Paper and string stretched over a wooden frame."

"They won't hold," his sister had added, emphasising her statement with a twitch of red-gold feathers. "They won't hold and you'll fall. Stay close to the ground."

And Billy had, glad to be flying at all even if he wasn't entirely content with his ragged, rustling paper wings. He stayed low, playing no more than four or five feet off of the ground while his friends pushed ever higher, ever further away. They dared each other to greater heights with catcalls and dizzying loops while Billy watched from below.

"I know it's hard," his grandmother would whisper on those days when four or five feet seemed worse than nothing at all and Billy had come running into the house to bury his tear-stained face into the soft down on the underside of her wings. "I know it's hard, sweetheart, but it's for the best. It's safer."

She stroked his hair while he cried. Sometimes, forgetting, she would run comforting fingers along the outside edge of his wings like she did when Billy's sister was the one crying into their grandmother's wings. Billy would cry harder, then, under the gentle caresses he couldn't feel.

His family had always warned Billy not to fly too high, to stay low, to be safe. But Billy wasn't in Glasgow anymore and there was something about mid-afternoon in New Zealand that made everything seem possible.

Billy spread his paper wings and allowed Dom to draw him high, higher, and thought to himself that perhaps the fall would be worth it.

End.


End file.
